Wednesday, 16 July 2014

FOR what it described as “haphazard distribution of Permanent Voters’ Cards,” the House of Representatives yesterday summoned the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Atahiru Jega, before its Committee on Electoral Matters within 24 hours to explain the progress of the ongoing exercise.

This followed the concerns expressed via a motion by Yakub Balogun that though the electoral umpire has succeeded in providing Temporary Voters’ Cards, which were used and widely accepted for the 2011 general elections, “the haphazard distribution of Permanent Voters’ Cards may lead to disenfranchisement of eligible voters and violate the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).”

According to him, the concerns became necessary since INEC has directed that Temporary Voters’ Cards would not be allowed in subsequent elections, and also directed that all eligible voters must replace their Temporary Voters’ Cards with the new Permanent Voters’ Cards.

According to him, available report “indicated that INEC has not been able to effectively replace all the Temporary Voters’ Cards with permanent ones in all the states of the federation” in line with its directive.

More so, “it was alleged that eligible voters who had approached INEC for the replacement of their cards were turned back on the account that their individual Permanent Voters’ Cards were not ready,” the lawmaker from Lagos State stated, noting that the development was not good enough.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives yesterday passed the sum of N322 billion for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and N52 billion for the National Communication Commission (NCC) for their 2014 budgets.

Also, it passed the sum of N271 billion for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for 2014. The budget consists of N161.804 capital expenditure and N109.238 recurrent expenditure vote.

A breakdown of the recurrent component shows that N60.037 billion is for overhead while N49. 200 billion is for personnel cost. According to the report of the Committee on FCT, the capital provision would take care of capital projects in the service of the FCT.

These include expansion and rehabilitation of Airport and Kubwa Expressways and the provision of infrastructure to ongoing districts, including Jahi, Wuye, Maitama Extension and Abuja North-West, among others. The capital component has also made provision for the opening of new districts such as Kyami, Mbora and others.

N2 billion was earmarked for construction and completion of various engineering infrastructure projects in the satellite towns. Also, N6 billion was allocated for security administration and N16 billion for the health.

Education, agriculture and rural development as well as social development secretariats received N5 billion, N3 billion and N4 billion Respectively
Wednesday, 16 July 2014 22:15 Written by Terhemba Daka, Abuja, guardian news